Re: of Machines
by Hy3na01
Summary: A remake of the base story line, Project: of Machines, as I definitely got lost and sidetracked in side plots.. I hope you all enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

The gates of Demacia stand proud, bright, and as welcoming as twelve-foot-tall gates can be. Two guards, both looking tired and haggard, have set up a card table out of a couple of crates along the side. Not many people come through these gates, and just about none are hostile. A man, walking alone, covered in a tattered black cloak and carrying a rough pack made of sticks and rabbit hide, exits a mountain pass into the flat plane, just half a mile east of the main gates.

 _Death would be a better option. Death would be a much, much better option, than this silly escapade. As if these people would even look at me with even a drop of empathy._

 _But you're running out of options. You have to be here. Either the wolves, starvation, or some other creature is going to take you down, or these people might just end it. This is your last resort, and they might even make a show out of it. The one good thing to come out of this life._

 _Great. Now i'm making jokes about being publicly executed. I truly have gone insane._

Looking down at a puddle from the recent rain, the man smiled to himself.

 _I look the part too_

His hair, filled with sticks and leaves, had grown long, down to his jawline, and a beard reached to his collarbone. The weathered maroon eyes, once clear and decisive, now appeared sunken and unfocused. His once powerful, muscular frame had diminished, now appearing as skin and bones with a sore excuse for muscles showing just underneath. The man licked his chapped lips. He had gone the entire day without water, unable to catch enough to sate his thirst from the meager supply of rain. It was the third and final day of no water. Tomorrow he had a high chance of death, even if he made it inside the gates. Crouching down, he looked into the small puddle, trying to determine if it was safe to drink. Realizing he was probably walking to a death sentence anyways, he scooped what he could into his dust-caked hands and brought it to his lips. It wasn't cool, and certainly not clear, but it wet his parched throat and might sustain him for a few minutes longer than what he had.

Standing back up and pausing, waiting for his headrush to leave, he staggered onwards towards the palace gates, the guards looking up from their game when they heard his measured footsteps and labored breathing.

"Hail, sir! Who might you be?" The right-most guard asked. He was an older man, from before the war truly started, with a balding head and a salt-and-pepper beard that wasn't quite as long as the approaching man's. Well built and still in shape, despite most likely being in his late forties.

"Refugee. Need water. Please.. Help..." Croaked the man. His brief sip of water had already left his mouth and it returned to its dry state. One of the man's knees gave way, as he no longer had the strength to stand, pushing his hood back away from his face.

"Bring the general. Quickly." He heard the younger guard whisper into the gates at a page, upon which he ran towards the closely stationed barracks. The guard, clearly in his early twenties, with a shock of brown hair tied back in a short ponytail stood and quickly pulled the older guard aside and whispered in his ear. The older guard gave him a glance that confirmed his suspicions. His eyes immediately went to his eyes, then his hair, which the man knew quite obviously showed his streak of white, before the guards eyes widened and nodded to his younger comrade.

Black dots started to appear in the man's vision, as the gates were opened and a large, well armored figure with a giant sword strapped across it's back made its way right in front of him, crouched down, and pulled his chin up to look him in the eyes. With nothing else to lose, the man stared into the hulking figure's eyes, making it simple and quick.

Garen's blue eyes stared back at him, first with what looked like a small sense of pity, before it turned into the hardened steel of anger, and hatred, before he spoke.

"Darius."

Whatever else Garen said after that did not matter, nor did they matter to

Darius, as all went black into the abyss that was unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

Darius awoke to a dark, black night with what was probably the best view he has ever seen in his life. Floor to ceiling windows revealed that he was high up on a mountain looking down on the city-state that was Demacia. Torches and lanterns made the scene of multi-storied estates seem otherworldly, with flickering lights reflecting off of the roof tiles of the lower-stationed houses for the less wealthy, the petricite walls that were so ominous the last time Darius was truly awake seemed more like a child's toy from this angle and position. And the _stars_. Darius was never a star-gazer, but from the viewpoint that he was at, it was a spectacle that he could barely even comprehend. There was Bard's Horn, and Ornn's Spade, and the Spear of Kalista, and the Sun Disc, amongst all of the others that Darius taught himself when he was younger. Caught in the moment, Darius attempted to stand to get closer to the glass, but caught his arm on something. He looked down and saw a needle, attached to his arm, which lead to a machine set in the wall that was slowly dripping a slightly green liquid into it, slowly feeding him.

Darius frowned. Not knowing what was being put into his body made him edgy.

And cautious.

He pulled the needle from his arm, drawing a pinprick of blood from the entry point. Immediately a small alarm started to go off, the machine starting to beep frantically and blink red lights.

Almost as quickly as it started, a woman, the one with golden eyes and music-like voice swept into the room and shut it off.

"Why can't this thing ever just shut the fu-" she stopped when she saw Darius sitting up and awake. "Oh. You're awake. That's why."

Darius took a moment to take in the woman's appearance. She was small, probably around five-foot-four with an athletic build. Shoulder-length and wavy dirty-blond hair, golden irises, and a slight smattering of freckles on her cheeks. She was wearing well-fitting black jeans and a navy blue t-shirt hanging off of one shoulder, revealing the strap of a purple bra and causing the V to extend down her chest probably farther than it was intended, revealing a sapphire on a chain nestled between her breasts. Her feet shoved into mismatched orange and green socks completed the picture.

"Umm…" Darius tried to say.

"You know, you could have kept that needle in your arm, slept for another couple of hours until it was daytime, and _then_ bothered me so I could sleep a full night. I've been working on keeping you alive for the past month but no…" She crossed her arms as she said this, adjusting her shirt to cover the pendant, but the playful smirk that crossed her face said she was mostly joking.

Mostly

"I.. uh… wait, _month?_ " Darius asked.

"Yep. About a month ago Garen just shows up at my door carrying you, which must have been difficult considering the path to get up here and all that, even if you are just a bundle of sticks-"

"Hey!" Darius interjected. He looked down at his body, then realized she was right. He was pretty much just skin and bones at this point.

"And told me to save you. You of all people too. Ugh." She turned around and started fiddling with another machine, grabbing things out of cabinets and drawers. He had to admit, she wasn't exactly intimidating when she was angry. She was more… cute and annoyed than anything. Like a puppy you had told "no."

"What does "ugh" mean?" Darius asked, groaning as he sat further up so he could feel like he wasn't paralyzed, working the kinks in his neck out.

"Well, considering who you are and what you did over a year ago, I don't know why Garen would want to save your life, unless he truly did change with Kat coming here and whatnot.

"Oh." Part of Darius had hoped that, for some reason, this woman did not know who he was. _Shouldn't have gotten your hopes up, everyone in Demacia knows who you are._

"It's not like I wouldn't have recognized you. I was a scout during the war anyways. You stand out like a river crab in a tree."

 _What?_

"Umm, i'm sorry?"

She turned around to face him and leaned up against the table she was in front of to look at him, bracing herself with her hand.

"I didn't know you had those words in your vocabulary. But even then, they don't bring back the thousands of people that Noxus slaughtered during the war. Even from you, it doesn't help." She turned back to her work with whatever she was doing.

"Does it help that I'm the one who killed Swain?" He asked.

A loud clatter rang through the room as she dropped a tool on a tray and turned around again, her golden eyes wide and incredulous.

"That was _you?_ " She asked. "We knew it was someone within Noxus at the time, but we didn't know for sure who. We thought it was a spy that managed to get close and was killed just after, but we could never confirm" She stepped closer to him with a pocket watch, snatching his wrist and putting her fingers on a pulse point before he could even react. "So how did you do it?" She asked as she checked his heart rate

"Well.. his umm… Swain's demon form has a kind of "cooldown" you know? He can't channel the demon's energy all the time, otherwise he might have stayed in that form for the entire war and Noxus would have won." He stuttered. She nodded and bit her lower lip, almost subconsciously. It didn't help that she had perched on the edge of the bed, and the pressure from her thigh pressing on his was very distracting, not to mention her fingers on his wrist. He hadn't had human interaction since his personal exile years ago "So I guess you could say… I caught him unawares..? Which is I guess easier to do if he trusts you a bit more than everyone else" He said. She had finished counting his pulse and had stood up to go get something from a far cabinet, leaving his leg a little colder than it should have been from the absence of her body heat. Why was she so distracting? Was it because he had been out of touch of human contact for the better part of the year?

"Mmm. We had been trying to do that for years, but couldn't spare the time to actually get close to him during the entirety of the war." She said. She came back to him with a syringe of an opaque, red liquid. "Hold still." was all she said as she jabbed it into the crook of his elbow and pressing the plunger down.

He still flinched, but her grip was like iron on his forearm since he hadn't exactly much of his musculature left.

"That wasn't holding still" She said before smirking and removing the syringe.

"So why aren't you being all angry and even helping me in the first place if you don't like me?" Darius asked. She looked up into his eyes like she wasn't expecting that question, biting her lip again. Why did she keep doing that? It was annoyingly distracting.

"Well, the war was over a year ago, and I've made my peace with what happened. My best friend died during that time, and I spent a lot of time in Ionia learning meditations and ways to help me keep my mental state… stable." As she spoke, her hand drifted to the pendant hidden under her shirt, before moving away again, almost like an afterthought. The pendant, Darius noticed earlier, was of a bird in flight. He also noticed where it was on her person, which was _very_ distracting. He forced himself to recall all the names of the Noxian Thanes he could remember, and avert his eyes towards what the woman was doing now. That made him stop thinking like that.

Temporarily

"Well, it sounds like you came farther along than old Garen down there. It seemed like he almost wanted to execute me as soon as he recognized me." Darius said, almost as a half joke, to keep his mind on other things besides the woman beside him, fiddling with the needle that was originally in his arm before he woke up.

To his pleasure, this statement elicited a delicious laugh from the woman beside him. She threw her head back, leaning partially as well, revealing a portion of her navel that Darius had a hard time drawing his eyes away from.

"Garen and Katarina… they both hated what had happened during the war. They promised each other that they would try to not kill anyone unless absolutely necessary. I guess they were both done with violence."

 _Dammit Darius, get it together. You don't even know her name, she's Demacian, she probably slightly hates you still, and she is probably only keeping you alive because Garen told her to. You can't just come out of a year-long seclusion and start seeing someone off the bat. You don't even know the rules, or this woman's personality and other_ important _information._

The woman had reapplied the needle to his arm and pressed a button on the machine administering the serum going to his arm.

"I am going to keep you here for a few more weeks, making sure that you are well on your way to recovery before I even bring Garen in here. Knowing him, he is probably just going to stress you out to the point where I'm going to have to revive you again, and people don't come back twice." she said. "If you need anything, you see that button on the side of the support there?" She gestured to a button on the side of the bed itself. "You press that, and I'll show up as soon as I can. And only use it for legitimate things. I'm not going to peel your grapes for you." She added with a wink. "I'll be back later with food."

"Wait," Darius called. She turned around and raised an eyebrow. "What is your name?" He asked, feeling a little foolish in asking.

"I'm Quinn," She said, before turning around and adding: "and your brother killed my best friend." She said, heading to the door.

Darius' eyes followed the slight sway of her hips as she left the room before laying back and releasing a sigh.

 _Stop that train of thought._ Darius thought, attempting mental exercises that kept him mostly sane during his exile taught to him by a fellow wanderer, his eyelids drooping.

Darius promptly fell back asleep, as he tried to regain his strength so he didn't have to bother her anymore, his thoughts on Quinn.

Little did he know, her thoughts were on him as well.

Lucian had been tracking this target for two weeks now. Supposedly, his prey had kidnapped a bunch of people and was testing illegal serums and experiments on them. His record seemed clean, but rumor had it that he was connected to the disappearance of Viktor during the Final War, and he was also suspected to have conspired in much of Jinx's destruction in PIltover, not to mention supposedly conspiring with Urgot and buying tech off of him. Now, as Lucian followed him from the rooftops, he seemed like a homeless man in search of a meal. Unable to see his face or body, as he was covered in a very thick black cloak that turned the rain and kept his face shrouded in darkness, Lucian kept his distance. He could very well be armed, and even though Lucian was a skilled fighter, he was always wary of his opponent.

Making as little noise as possible, Lucian kept a trail on him, always with a minimum of three houses in between them and keeping low to the surrounding stone edges to keep his balance. Lucian knew Zaun's streets like the back of his hand, as he had been hunting here for the better part of a year. But trying to help bring peace and prosperity to a city-state that seemed to not want to be organized and crime-less was harder than it seemed, so keeping himself straight was priority number one.

 _Or maybe he is trying to shake a tail that he thinks he has_ Lucian thought _too bad, because I'm not shakeable._ Watching carefully, his mark took a turn into an alley, checked around to make sure no one was watching, then opened a door in set seamlessly into the wall, almost like it appeared out of nowhere.

 _Funny how no one ever looks up._ Lucian thought as he jumped up to the roof of the building his mark had entered. _And funny how the same people think that they manage to shake any tails they have_. Lucian thought as he nimbly hopped down to the ground. Mud splattered his pants up to his knees as he landed in a puddle. It had been raining for two days and it seemed like it was just starting to stop, with it only slightly drizzling and the first few glimpses of sky coverage in between the gray clouds. _Great. More muck i'm going to have to clean up when I'm done._ Lucian thought, as he checked for a way in. The door was cleverly sealed, and it seemed required some sort of passcode, even though he clearly didn't see his intended target put one in.

But people like his target always had a secondary entry or exit.

Quickly leaping back up to the roof of the building, Lucian rooted around on the loose rocks and gravel that made up the flat roof, finally coming to a corner where the pebbles seemed freshly turned. Clearing them away to reveal a patch of stone set into the roof that was almost… outlined. Quickly looking around to make sure no one was watching or on rooftops close by, Lucian reached into one of the folds of his cloak and retrieved a device he had commissioned from Piltover's best engineers, roughly the shape and weight of a coin, he set it on the stone and pressed down. Immediately, the device began hacking any hextech that was set beneath the stone below him. Not two minutes later, an audible click was heard and the panel raised up slightly, causing Lucian to suck in his breath. If he could hear it, then surely the man downstairs could as well.

He would have to proceed with even more caution.

Retrieving his device and stowing it away, he pried open the trapdoor slowly, so as to make sure the hinges didn't squeak. Luckily for him, they were well oiled.

Or unluckily.

Oiled hinges meant one of three things. One, this place either has more than one tenant, two, his mark came here more frequently than he suspected. The other meant that this hatch was used often enough to keep the hinges in good condition.

Alarms went off in Lucian's brain, but before he could do anything, an arm reached out of the gloom that was the opening of the hatch and grabbed his wrist. Lucian had lightning-quick reflexes after years of hunting undead and those who tried to fight back with the most dangerous and wild of attacks, but even they were no match for the speed at which Lucian was grabbed and pulled down into the hatch and unrelenting darkness. He tried to reach for his twin guns, holstered on either hip, and created to shoot pure bolts of light (helpful for dark situations or killing undead beings), but his arms were pinned to his side and a sharp pain in the back of his head made him lose consciousness.

The darkness of unconsciousness and the room he had entered was no different.


	3. Chapter 3

Weeks passed by, and Darius' condition improved within the first few days, but he seemed to never gain much weight and was always in a half-asleep feeling for a few hours before he could even walk a few steps, and this made Quinn make no move towards bringing Garen in to interrogate him, saying he wasn't close enough to be brought in to be questioned.

"Whatever took such a heavy toll to make you like that wasn't just a case of dehydration and lack of nourishment, it's also a psychological problem that you are facing. Whatever it is, you need to face it, or you aren't ever going to heal fully, nor will you be able to tell others about it if you can't face it yourself." she said one day, as she slowly lead him around the room that he had been in for so long. It was a daily ritual. He would be awoken by her bringing breakfast in, she would give him an injection whilst he finished the small amount of food he could eat, and then do what she called "physical therapy," usually just him making circuits around the room, or lifting small weights, trying to rebuild the muscle systems in his body.

"Your body was deprived of its normal energy producing structures, and as a result, started to eat away at your muscle tissue. Only small amounts of meat for you until your body returns to its normal consumption habits. If left untreated for too long, you are going to have a big problem weilding a knife and fork, much less being able to even lift a block of stone." Quinn lectured him as he was eating what consisted of his "dinner." Half a loaf of bread, fresh vegetables that he assumed were from a personal garden Quinn had herself, and a bowl of wild rice.

"Mmm. I had too many half-cooked rabbits in the wilderness it seems then." Darius said between bites. This elicited one of Quinn's laughs that caused Darius to almost choke on his food from his heart leaping to his throat. One of the few things that returned was his appetite for anything that came his way. What was new, and something he assumed he picked up from Quinn herself, was a sense of dry humor.

Speaking of the woman that was on his mind more often than he would like to admit, he glanced over at her as she worked with bringing out vitamins and supplements to give to him as well. He couldn't exactly describe what it was that made him attracted to her so much. She was dressed in dark blue jeans and a black tank top, revealing her tanned arms and the slight raised sections on her back that hinted at her shoulder blades. The dark colors of her clothing was offset by the sapphire hung from her neck and the usual mismatch colors of socks, today being neon yellow and a vivid lavender. He would have to ask her about her sock choices one day.

When his vocal chords no longer took six seconds to begin working once he first saw her..

Darius realized he had been staring, and that would look poorly on him if she turned around at that exact moment. Quickly averting his eyes back to his rice as soon as he heard an odd thudding sound echoed throughout the outer hallway. A hallway he had yet to enter because he had yet to really want to break Quinn's trust. If she didn't want to bring him around, than he was going to stay here.

Quinn's head snapped up, head listed to one side slightly, before bolting out the door before Darius even realized that she was gone. It didn't sound like something one would want to be hearing in one's private home on top of a mountain.

And Darius wasn't going to be caught unawares.

Grabbing his empty bowl and his fork, he slowly lowered himself to the floor, keeping hold of the bed to steady himself before heading to the door and letting himself out.

His room opened into a short corridor leading to some stairs heading up and wrapping slightly to the right. Great. He may be able to walk with the support of the wall, but stairs were a whole new obstacle. He pocketed the fork, keeping the bowl in his other hand leveled and ready to throw, he slowly took to the steps one at a time.

While being quite difficult to ascend, and even more so with one hand occupied, he managed to make it to the top of the staircase quite quickly, though it wasn't close to a normal person's walking. The top of the staircase opened to a nice, large, room that also had floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city-state. This time, though, there was a balcony so one could sit or stand to watch the sunset over the ocean to the west. A large fireplace warmed the air with its blaze whilst two very comfortable chairs and a large sofa sat close by.

But what really mystified Darius was the wall of books on the far side. The shelves, reaching almost to the ceiling ten feet above his head, were bulging with what was a veritable treasure trove of knowledge. But it was the two voices, both partially raised that he was concerned about. Among them was a quieter, melodious sounding voice that seemed very calm, in stark contrast to the two that were addressing it. That's when Darius' eyes alighted on the three figures in front of the furniture. Almost like they wanted to sit but didn't plan on staying long.

"-as I was saying, he is very unhealthy. He has been severely malnourished for too long, and the fact that his own body was consuming his muscle systems means that he has had a very hard time trying to even walk!" Quinn said, sounding like she brought up this conversation before. Her back was to him and even from where he was at he could tell that the muscles in her back were quite knotted with stress. _What does she have to stress about? I'm the one who almost died._

Then his eyes alighted on the other two people in the room.

One of them was Garen, as much was obvious with the enormous sword strapped along his back and the full body armor. Along with his size and weight, he was almost the size of two of Quinn and then some, but Quinn was standing her own, not to mention the other person in the room who not only commanded attention, but people as well.

Jarvan the fourth. The bloody king of Demacia was here to see him. While he wasn't the same size as Garen, he clearly commanded more of your attention than the hulking mass next to him. He wore a golden breastplate and a light cape draped over his shoulders. A light crown inset with a large emerald sat upon his head. Darius had never been close enough to see the crowned prince, now king, on the battlefield. He was tall, but not nearly as tall as Garen, well muscled, with worry lines on his forehead, the start of crows feet at the corner of his eyes, a square jaw that still showed youth, and a mess of brown hair that he assumed was only held back by the crown on his head.

Jarvan's head came up as he noticed the movement of Darius coming up the stairs, and his eyes narrowed when he recognized him.

"Barely weak enough to walk, yet he made it here by himself. Either you were lying or he has strength that we have yet to see, Quinn." He said as she whipped around to face him, an incredulous look on her face, replaced by worry that set into her eyes.

"Definitely more of the latter, Your Majesty." Darius said, making sure sarcasm was well laced into his words. "I'd bow, but as I barely made it up the stairs, I think i'm going to forego that tradition." He smiled to show that even if he could bow, he wouldn't actually do it anyways. His eyes flickered to Quinn before settling back on the King, though not before noticing the humor dancing in her eyes and the draw-in lips of someone trying not to laugh.

Jarvan did not seem amused, but rather even more irritated.

"Quinn? Can you leave us? I would like to question Darius here about his actions and his… whereabouts after the war." He said, his voice layered with malice towards no one in particular, his hand settling to the jeweled dagger on his hip. Darius had half a mind to tell him to piss off, but decided to say something a little more… courteous. _I don't want to be out of my last refuge on Runeterra just yet_.

"Actually, I think I want her to stay. If I'm going to spill my story, it might as well be to the audience of the entire place." Darius said, turning slightly to follow the retreating figure of Quinn towards a stairway leading to what he assumed was the second floor. Her head whipped around, a slight look of surprise, then it was replaced with a mask of calm before flopping down onto the sofa facing the fireplace. Darius himself perched on one of the chairs, feeling exhausted and setting the bowl on the small table beside him. He kept the fork in his pocket.

 _Just in case_

Both Garen and Jarvan remained standing, Garen's arms crossed and Jarvan's eyes boring into Darius' skull.

"So tell me, Darius. Why are you here, and where have you been the past year since the war ended? Our scouts reported that you went missing shortly after the death of Swain and the fall of Noxus." Jarvan inquired.

 _Straight to the point I see._ Darius thought. "Well, I think the fact that I have been pretty much in a coma for a month kind of explains why im here. Malnutrition and my body eating itself away and whatnot. But no big deal right?" Darius replied. "As for where I have been, I have been everywhere looking for refuge that was not here, considering this is the welcome I get, even at death's door" he said, gesturing to the scowl plastered to Garen's face. Jarvan didn't look amused, but let him continue speaking. "Let's see, I first went to Bilgewater. Stayed there for a while, I think around a month or two before I got tired of people hunting me and trying to make sure I had a decent meal at least once a week. So I traveled westward, towards Zaun. Apparently I'm wanted there and the chembarons have a hefty price for my head on a pike. Didn't stay there long. I didn't even try Piltover, knowing I was going to instantly be put to death if I showed my face around there. I met a wandering traveler though, who took me south towards the ruins of Shurima. Apparently Nasus and Azir are trying to rebuild-" Darius said before being interrupted

"Wait, Nasus and Azir? The Shurman ascended God-warriors? They are rebuilding Shurima?" Garen asked, an incredulous look on his face, mixed in with skepticism.

"Isn't that what I just said?" Darius asked. "Anyways, they didn't want me around for long so-"

"You're lying to us. Those are just urban myths." Garen said. "I told you this was pointless Jarvan." Garen turned towards his ruler, who carried a blank face and betrayed no emotion.

"Patience Garen. Urban legend they may be, but people have been telling me that the remains of Shurima are starting to come back alive. They speak of towns erupting out of sandstone from the ground, and warriors created from the very sand they walked on guarding the entrances. I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't just myths. And let him finish speaking." Jarvan said, nodding towards Darius to continue his story.

Darius inclined his head before continuing, gaining a new respect for the king. "From Shurima I continued west to Targon, but didn't even try to come close to anyone there. I didn't want to die just then, and I hear to set foot in any refuge there you have to fight Pantheon, which wasn't going to happen. So I boarded a ship towards the Freljord. Turns out, it's really cold there." Darius said, adding on the joke to make it less serious. He was about to continue talking but he was interrupted by a laugh that rang through the room, emanating from Quinn.

"Sorry." She said, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them, her golden eyes trained on Darius, her face unreadable, but the humor dancing in her eyes was obvious.

"With it being really cold, I almost froze to death there many times, and I didn't dare come close to civilization in case someone had also put another bounty on my head there as well. Plus, the wolves are vicious there. I knew Ionia was out of the question as well, so I made my way here for what I knew would be a final place, one way or another. Plus, it was the closest place to the Freljord I could get at, and I barely even made it then."

"Plausible, but still not necessarily easy to believe. So you've been travelling all over Runeterra looking for refuge? Why did you need refuge? You could have just stayed in Noxus. I heard Marcus has a high standing opinion of you." Garen said.

 _Course he would know all about the DuCouteau's._ Darius thought.

"Yeah, well, I wasn't exactly in high standing with all of Noxus' thanes either. One way or another, I was going to find myself dead there eventually." Darius said, hoping that it would be a straight enough answer to hide what he didn't want to say.

 _If they ask about it, i'll answer honestly. But it's not lying if they never ask the question_. Darius thought, all but too soon.

"What do you know about the death of Swain?" Jarvan asked, his inquisitive eyes boring into his, creating a pressure he couldn't get rid of.

Darius sighed. So the truth comes out now. "I know everything there is to know about it. I was the one that killed him." He said. This caused Jarvan's head to snap up from his hands, which he was staring at like he didn't want to ask the question he just did. Garen's face lost it's stoney look to it, dropping his mask temporarily to reveal pure shock before being replaced. Quinn said and showed nothing, considering it wasn't exactly news to her.

"Wh-Why did you kill Swain? I thought he was practically your father?" Jarvan asked. "He raised you up from the streets and made you the face of Noxus. You and your brother that is."

"Well, that answer has to deal with my brother. My brother did something that apparently pissed Swain off so much that he wanted Draven dead. But he wanted it public. He sent a bunch of guards to apprehend him, and then had him- had him publicly executed." Darius' voice choked on the last few words. He looked down on his hands, his eyes conjuring blood spilling over his fingers. The blood of his brother. "I was the one to preside over the execution."

You could have heard a pin drop in the street down in the city, far away as they were. The only sounds were of the crackle of the fireplace. Everyone's face was in shock, even the unsympathetic Garen.

"But thats that. And It has been over a year now. I've faced what I have needed, but now-" He cut off mid sentence as a wave of nausea and pain ran through his body. Everyone sat up and looked straight at him in confusion and he doubled over groaning with pain.

Quinn stood up sharply. "Get out. Both of you. This a problem you two have caused. He wasn't prepared for stairs yet, much less interrogation." Quinn ordered.

 _That's funny._ Darius thought. _Most people would have probably said that backwards._

Jarvan started to back away towards the front door, but Garen ran forward, catching Darius as he dropped out of the chair headfirst. "Where do you need him?" Garen said, his voice betraying the fact that he shouldn't be caring about Darius' well being.

"Downstairs. Put him in the bed, and then get out of my house. I'll let you know when he can talk without almost dying. He has spent too much energy today." Quinn said before leading Garen, carrying his exhausted body over one shoulder, down to where Darius had come from. "I'm going to give him a sedative, because he needs to regain his strength. Don't you _dare_ come up here again until I have sent for you." Quinn said, the unbridled anger in her voice seeming to shock Garen into understanding and comprehension.

"Yes Ma'am." he said, setting him down onto the bed Darius had become all too familiar with recently, before Quinn stuck a needle into his arm and everything went black.

 _That is happening way too often nowadays_ He thought.


	4. Chapter 4

Lucian awoke on his back on a slab of cold, gray metal, his wrists, ankles, and stomach was secured by straps made out of beaten bronze, facing the ceiling. A cold sweat dripping down his forehead as he remembered the events leading up to the position he was placed in. Worst of all, he could see torture racks and instruments along his peripheral, and the weight of his weapons were gone, leaving him feeling feeling defenseless, even if he was far from it. It had been too long since he hadn't had his guns in his hands or in the holsters on his hips.

Pulling against his restraints, he tried to free himself from the bronze cuffs that held him in place, but to no avail.

"He is awake, doctor." Rasped a voice from the edges of his peripheral vision

"So it seems. It is almost time, get everything prepared." Said another from the other side of his head. Unmistakably male, but high-pitched and hoarse.

"Who are you? Let me out!" He bellowed. The slab he was laying down on slowly tilted up, revealing a grisly in front of him.

Human bodies, half decayed and partially cybernetic hung from chains and hooks from the ceiling, many hooked through their jaws or eye sockets. Rotten pieces of flesh hung from bones, and piles of burnt and ripped clothing, along with a few bones covered the floor around them, and the occasional spark blew out of wires connected to their heads.

"Now, let's get you turned around. We don't want to scare you too much just yet huh?" The raspy voice stated as the slab slowly rotated around.

Two men stood in front of him. The first was a doctor, bright yellow eyes that looked almost… mechanical… shone from sunken sockets, most of his hair having been burned or shaved away from his skull, and what was left was pure white, and a black piece of metal stood out on the left side of his head, just behind his temple. He was dressed in a white lab coat and dark pants with what looked to either be oil and grease or dried blood on them.

Or all three.

The second man was presumably his target, tall and covered head to toe in a dark cloak, the only thing showing was a dark yellow glow coming from under the hood, but from what Lucian couldn't tell.

"Who were those people that you killed? The ones hanging from chains?" Lucian demanded

"Hush now, Purifier, all is well." The man in the lab coat, presumably a scientist, said in his oddly high-pitched voice as he turned around to a table next to him and began fiddling with syringes and tools. The man in the cloak simply stood extremely still and didn't move.

"Who are you guys?" Lucian asked, not giving up on trying to get out of his restraints.

The scientist simply turned around and grinned, holding up a syringe of light blue serum, pushing the plunger down a little bit, spraying the fluid onto Lucian's arm. Oddly, it burned through his sleeve but felt cold onto his arm and didn't burn him.

"What the hell is that stuff? Don't come near me with that!" Lucian added as the scientist slowly took a step towards him. A feeling that Lucian hadn't felt in years slowly climbed up through his throat.

Fear

The scientist stuck the syringe into his arm and depressed the plunger all the way down, injecting the serum into his elbow. Starting with where the needle entered his arm and spreading outward, his body turned very, _very_ cold and he was unable to move the limbs affected by the spreading cold, but he still was conscious.

"Now, let us begin shall we?" The scientist said, turning towards the man in the cloak. The man raised arms from the shadow of his cloak that seemed to be covered in very long and complicated metal gloves that seemed to reach up to his shoulders to push back his hood.

The man had a metal mask to match his gloves, a smooth metal plate curved around his face with eight lights - three vertical on the sides and two long ones between the columns that formed the other six lights. Steel curved around his face and above to come to a taper behind his skull and to a point near his chin. He then pushed the cloak off of his shoulders, bearing the rest of his body, causing Lucian to go colder than the serum was making him

It wasn't a mask, or gloves covering his arms and face

They _were_ his arms and face

The man's entire body was formed of steel and metal. Braided cables showed around the joints where the metal plates flexed to imitate muscle structure. Three metal digits formed his fingers, along with an imitation of a thumb on each hand. Across his back hung a single long piece of steel, with yellow lights and energy hummed around the edge of it, imitating a sword that Lucian could guess cut steel and bone as easily as cut through flesh and rubber.

"Yes sir." The man said. That's when Lucian realized something, something that scared him more than the blade across his back

He knew this man's voice.

He knew who he used to be

"Yi?" Lucian asked.

The scientist chuckled.

"No. Not anymore."

Yi's metal fist struck out and punched Lucian right in the face, knocking him out cold.

The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was the cackling of the scientist


End file.
